• DISAGREEMENTS: PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS
  Institutional Research Funding IUT20-5
  Principal investigator: Prof. Margit Sutrop (my involvement 2014-2019)

The project is devoted to the study of disagreement as it arises in philosophy (e.g. logic, ontology), science, ethics and everyday life. The goal is to examine the nature of disagreement, to assess the implications that some seemingly dysfunctional disagreements may have for the objectivity of the topics on which they arise, and to develop strategies for the effective handling of disagreement. Accordingly, the diverse expertise of the UT Department of Philosophy will be deployed in an integrated assessment of the phenomenon from conceptual, metaphysical, and practical perspectives. The project will produce (1) conceptual clarity about the different types of disagreement and heuristics for diagnosing types of disagreement, (2) an elucidation of the metaphysical consequences implied by seemingly dysfunctional disagreements, and based on these outcomes, (3) an informed understanding of how some real-world disagreements are most effectively addressed.

• MIND WITHOUT MENTAL STATES? Estonian Science Foundation grant No. ETF9117; 2012-2015
  Principal investigator: dr. Bruno Mölder
  

The aim of the project is to examine the implicit assumption in the contemporary philosophy. We call it the Folk-Mentalist Assumption. According to this assumption, the mind is solely composed of mental states as individuated by folk psychology, a framework that consists of a special mental vocabulary as well as rules and principles for employing this vocabulary. The assumption seems unable to account for mental phenomena such as mental processes occurring at very short time-scales, phenomenal aspects of experience, psychological structures that underpin our conscious phenomenology and intersubjective processes that constitute our understanding of other people. This project will divide into two sub-projects: (a) the general assessment of the Folk-Mentalist Assumption and working towards an alternative conception, if needed; (b) the investigation of the phenomena that are troublesome for the Folk-Mentalist Assumption (especially time consciousness and intersubjectivity).

• TIMELY: Time in Mental Activity: theoretical, behavioral, bioimaging and clinical perspectives.
  FP7 COST-ESF Action TD0904; 2010-2014
  Chair of the Action dr. Argiro Vatakis
  

I was a Management Committee member and the co-coordinator of the Working Group 1a . For more details see the website of the project.

• CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RELATIVISM AND PLURALISM REGARDING TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE, NORMS AND VALUES
  Target funding
  Principal investigator: Prof. Margit Sutrop
  (my involvement 2008-2013)

The concept of relativism includes an array of positions unified by the view that certain important aspects of thought, experience, judgment and reality are relative. Pluralism signifies a perspective that certain things (concepts, values, norms, discourses, views) exist in plurality. The project will critically analyze various forms of relativism and pluralism (moral, political, epistemic, conceptual) and their implications. The objective is to establish that denying monism—a view that there exists only one acceptable conceptual scheme or value system—does not necessarily lead us to relativism. A lot of inconsistency and incoherence exists within relativism. A relativist position might lead to a denial of objectivity, knowledge, communication and the possibility of progress in thinking, language, science, morality, politics etc. Critical analysis of relativism will indicate whether pluralism could suffice as an alternative – while opposing monism it can be combined with objectivism.

• SUBJECTIVE TIME – PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROPERTY OR COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT?
  VolkswagenStiftung grant (2007-2009)
  Grantholder: Dr. Julian Kiverstein (Edinburgh)
  The homepage of the research group

We call time which allows us to experience things or events as enduring, changing or staying the same, subjective time. Is phenomenal consciousness structured so as to enable us to experience subjective time? A view which answers this question in the affirmative, takes subjective time to be a phenomenal property. It takes phenomenal consciousness to have the property of being structured, so as to allow for experiences through and over time. The opposing view denies that phenomenal consciousness has such a structure, arguing instead that phenomenal experiences take place at discrete instances in time. The aim of this project will be to look for empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience, consciousness studies, and psychophysics which might decide between these two views of phenomenal consciousness. Three thematic workshops will be organised around questions which tackle the dispute between these two accounts of phenomenal consciousness. The first will be the broadest in scope, the second and third workshops will focus on the more specific questions of the relation between timing in perception and the timing of neural events, and differences in experience of time, respectively. Two training workshops will be a forum for the exchange of knowledge within the interdisciplinary team.

• BRIDGING EXPLANATORY GAPS: How Science Can Alter Our View of the World. Estonian Science Foundation grant No. ETF7163
  Project leader: Prof. Daniel Cohnitz
  (my involvement 2007-2010)

The general topic of this research project is the phenomenon of explanatory gaps between folk theoretic accounts of a certain domain and scientific accounts of that same domain. The phenomena under study are such that prima facie the folk theoretic level of description and explanation is not considered defective. In other words: the folk theories seem to be about real and robust phenomena and seem to explain these phenomena truly. An explanatory gap, in our sense, is open if a scientific theory which is well confirmed and arguably about the same domain as the folk theory does not obviously entail the latter. In these cases it is at least not straightforward how the scientific theory can explain the phenomena the folk theory is about. Such explanatory gaps have been proposed in a variety of areas, for example in the study of phenomenal consciousness, the free will debate, and the study of knowledge. Our interest in explanatory gap phenomena covers three aspects: (i.) what is the status of the “folk theory”?, (ii.) what is the relation between the folk theory and the scientific theory?, (iii.) can explanatory gaps be closed?

• INFORMATION AND REPRESENTATION
  Basic funding
  Project leader: Prof. Daniel Cohnitz
  (my involvement 2008)

The scientific aim of the project is to study the applicability of a generalized theory of information, to concepts of information as used in modern physics, biology, theories of mental content and theories of the cognitive value of art. The project is intended to establish Theoretical Philosophy as a field of study and research, as intended by the structural development plan of the faculty of philosophy, by way of combining research interests and strengths of the group of lecturers and young researchers at the department of philosophy whose work falls within the area of theoretical philosophy. Further purposes are (1) the repatriation of Estonian researchers who recently graduated abroad, (2) to establish research interfaces within the new field of Cognitive Science, (3) to establish research interfaces within the department of philosophy and semiotics.

• THE MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND SOCIALLY DESIRABLE RESPONDING. Estonian Science Foundation grant No. ETF7060
  Project leader: Kenn Konstabel, PhD
  (my involvement 2007)

The general objective of the proposed project is to investigate the circumstances influencing the veridicality of personality scale responses. In a series of empirical studies, we investigate (a) the relation of self-report scales with various criteria for validity (incl. informant reports and behavioural data), and its dependence on socially desirable responding and the items’ favourability, and (b) the influence of social desirability on the process of responding to a questionnaire item. In addition, we provide a theoretical analysis of the causal reconceptualization of validity, and its applicability on personality tests.

• NORMATIVITY: a critical study of its philosophical foundations, historical sources, and forms of manifestation
  Target funding
  Principal investigator: Prof. Margit Sutrop
  (my involvement 2004-2007)

The main task of the current project is to provide a complex study of the philosophical foundations, historical origin and ways of manifestation in thinking, science and society. It is planned to verify and analyse critically a widely shared view that such concepts as knowledge, truth, meaning, virtue, justice, good and right have a normative dimension. A still open question, to be addressed by the project, is, where does their normativity come from. The starting point of the research is a philosophical-anthropological hypothesis that the sources of normative thinking and acting are in human nature. We engage in normative thinking because we are reflective creatures who have the capacity to reflect on our beliefs and desires, and ask, what one should do and how one should live. The project has three aims: firstly, it aims to find out the historical sources of normativity, secondly, to understand the nature of normative thinking and thirdly, to analyse normativity’s different forms of manifestation (science, morality, religion, politics, law, and art) both in history and in modern times. The current project is going to deal with normativity in three different fields: normativity of historical and contemporary thinking; normativity in science and scientific knowledge; normativity in morality, politics, religion, law, and art.

• PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES: ASCRIBED OBJECTIVITY
  ETF grant No. ETF4364
  project leader: Jaan Kivistik
  (my involvement 2000-2001)

The research group involved in the project continues dealing with “propositional attitude”, the central concept of philosophy of mind, language and logic. The subject will be approached in two principally different ways. On the one hand, it will be shown that instrumentalist or even agnostic account of propositional attitudes has several advantages in philosophy of mind and epistemology. On the other hand, it will be shown that philosophy of language and logic has to treat propositional attitudes as objective entities. The result will be the conception of “ascribed objectivity” that provides a complementary treatment to propositional attitudes.

• PROPOSITIONS AND ATTITUDES
  ETF grant, project leader: Jaan Kivistik
  (my involvement 1999-2000)

Other projects

• DONALD DAVIDSON: A collection of philosophical essays
  A grant from Eesti Kultuurkapital
  Grantholder Jaan Kangilaski (2007-2009)

Editing an Estonian translation of Donald Davidson’s essays for the Avatud Eesti Raamat series.